McGrory: Barry McGrory

William Barry McGrory

Father William Barry McGrory

Father Barry McGrory

MR. Barry McGrory

THIS PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Father Barry McGrory

Ex-priest, Archdiocese of Ottawa, Ontario. Ordained 1960. GUILTY plea August 1993 to charge of sex assault of 17-year-old native boy. Three years probation. November 1993 warned that he would face jail unless he abide by the terms of his probation.

Taught variously at Bishop’s University, Lennoxville (Quebec), St. Paul University (Ottawa) and the Grand Seminary on Kilborn Ave. in Ottawa. Served as a parish priest. Headed the Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada (now Catholic Missions in Canada)

_____________________________

October 2018: News that Father McGrory is now MR. Barry McGrory – he has been defrocked/laicized/dismissed from the clerical state

10 March 2017: further charges laid: 2 counts of indecent assault on a male; 2 counts of gross indecency. The incidents are alleged to have occurred in the 60s.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Ottawa Police Service Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit at 613-236-1222, ext. 5944. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS) or by downloading the Ottawa Police app.

08 March 2017:further charges coming – anticipated they will be laid by police on Friday 10 March 2017. There will then be a court date set to address the new charges. If things proceed according to this timeline there will be a pre-trial hearing 22 March 2017 (NOT open to the public). This info will be updated after Friday.

25 November 2016: new charges laid – two counts of gross indecency and two counts of indecent assault, in relation to offences alleged to have occurred in the late 1960s.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Ottawa police sexual assault unit at 613-236-1222, ext. 5944m or Crime Stoppers at1-800-222-8477. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).

The following information is drawn from Canadian Catholic Church Directories (CCCD) of that date, the 1980 Ontario Catholic Church Directory (OCD) and media (M)

01 October 2018: News that McGrory has been defrocked/laicized/reduced to the lay state/dismissed from the clerical state

10 March 2017: further charges laid: 2 counts of indecent assault on a male; 2 counts of gross indecency

25 November 2016: new charges laid – two counts of gross indecency and two counts of indecent assault, in relation to offences alleged to have occurred in the late 1960s.

2016: Interview

2011, 2010: not listed (CCCD)-

until at least 2010 was living with the nuns who once occupied St. Joseph’s Convent in Morrow Park, Toronto. The property was apparently sold but some of the nuns were allowed to stay on in the premises and McGrory stayed on with them – during his years with the Sisters he served as their chaplain – ‘saying’ Masses and ‘hearing’ confessions. (P)

I remember Father Barry McGrory attended a ceremony for a native community in British Columbia while he was with The Catholic Church Extension Society. A young man from the community was entrusted with an Eagle feather during the ceremony and, to everyone’s dismay, dropped it. There was a collective gasp as it fell to the ground because this was considered a terrible humiliation, given the significance of the Eagle feather. However, out of the crowd another young man rose up and went over to stand beside the one who had dropped the Eagle feather-and stood beside him so that he would not be alone. Fr. McGrory made the point that this is how Jesus befriends us also.
Inge Barthlomeiczik
Etobicoke, Ontario

What a gift Phan is! May i meditate and integrate this teaching which supplements my own experience, and the ineffable sadness i’ve felt with people both holier and wiser than i, and who yet do not know Him; as well as the guilt i feel when i discern this greater spiritual maturity achieved without or beyond Jesus! May the Holy Spirit long provide light and courage to Fr. Phan, and may we all welcome his gentle proding towards a more universal faith!

November 1993: McGrory seeking advice in court re his probation conditions. He was warned that he would face jail unless he abided by the terms of probation

August 1993: GUILTY plea to sex assault of 17-year-old boy (M) Three years probation. According to a media report the order “required the priest to refrain from contact with native groups and post adolescent youths and to continue taking psychiatric therapy. He was also prohibited from being in the company of any male under the age of 18 except in the presence of an adult.”

1992, 1991: 67 Bond St., Toronto, Ontario (CCCD)

(This is the address for the Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada. It is also the address for one of the Catholic Family Services offices in the Toronto Archdiocese. It looks as though the CCCD went to press before receiving word of November 1991 resignation. )

December 1991: victim charged after admitting he attacked McGrory when McGrory made unwanted sexual advances (the boy was later acquitted)

November 1991: resigned from Catholic Church Extension Society. The resignation came three months after McGrory sexually abused a 17-year-old native boy.

02 November 1989: Father Barry McGrory and George Erasmus at Ottawa’s Saint Paul University to discuss concerns of the native peoples. Erasmus was the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations from 1985 to 1991

Late 1987: assumed duties as head of Catholic Church Extension Society (head office in Toronto, Ontario) (John Stephen Knight, former Auxiliary Bishop of Toronto was a past President of the Catholic Church Extension Society. Knight resigned his position as Auxiliary Bishop after allegations of sexual misconduct were investigated by the Toronto Archdiocese. Knight has never returned to public ministry. Neither the nature of the allegations against him nor the archdiocese’s findings have been revealed.)

1986-87: National Defence College, Kingston, Ontario

July 1986: “participated in an annual Denendeh seminar which takes a group of people from southern Canada and exposes them to the social, political and spiritual realities of the native people of the Northwest Territories.” (M)

Since its beginning. Holy Cross parishioners have sought to express their faith in creative and concrete ways. There has been an openness to a variety of liturgical expressions and ministries, due in no small part to the encouragement of Father Barry McGrory, pastor of Holy Cross from 1974-1986. A twinning relationship was entered into with a barrio in Managua, Nicaragua almost 20 years ago and has resulted in a number of supportive projects and visits by parishioners. {Planted by Flowing Water: The Diocese of Ottawa 1847-1997, Pierre Hurtbuise, Mark McGowan and Pierre Savard, Novalis Ottawa, 1998)

1973-74: P.O. Box 11, Lennoxville, Sherbrook, Quebec (CCCD) (according to media, at some point McGrory taught at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec. This must have been a year he taught at Bishop’s U?)

1971-72: Pastor, St. Philip Roman Catholic Church, Richmond, Ontario (CCCD) with missions at St. Clare in Dwyer Hill and Church of the Holy Spirit in Ashton (Stanley Corners) , Ontario (Masses at Holy Spirit alternated between Ashton and Glen Cairn Community Centre, Kanata (then Hazeldean), Ontario

sex abuse allegations of two male complainants date to late 60’s and/or early 70s when McGrory was serving at St. Philip’s in Richmond

1968-69: listed as on staff at the Major Seminary on Kilborn Ave. in Ottawa, Ontario

– Father Dale Crampton listed as “In Residence” at the Grand Seminary 1968-69 (CCCD) (according to McGrory, Crampton and McGrory were boyhood friends)

1968-69: listed as on staff at the Grand Seminary and also at Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church in Ottawa (Pastor Father J. Lorne Reynolds)

-on diocesan Ecumenism commission (Archbishop Jean-Marie Fortier)

– on Ecumenism commission for the Archdiocese of Sherbrook, Quebec

– charges laid November 2016 relate to allegations of sex abuse which transpired in the late 60s

– charges laid March 2017 relate to allegations of sex abuse which transpired in the 60s at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church and St. Philips church

A perspicacious letter

Toronto Globe and Mail

06 November 2007

Barry McGrory

I particularly appreciated Loren Hicks’s letter, The Dalai Lama Does Ottawa (Oct. 31). The astonishing parallels Ms. Hicks observed between what Canada did in the 1800s, and what China is doing to Tibet now, reveal what we were like and, sadly, still are. Think Kelowna, think the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or our ludicrous land “claims” process.

Why don’t newspapers give annual awards for the best letter of the year? If you did, Ms. Hicks’s letter would be a contender.

Now if you would only be perspicacious enough to appreciate the wisdom in my own letters …

____________________________

04 December 2004: On intimidating the intimidators: Fr. Barry McGrory goes south with peace group Pax Christi to monitor the U.S (Barry McGrory).

New First Nations Act more of the same

Letter to the Editor

The Sudbury Star

22 July 2003

Barry McGrory

To the Editor:

Re: Losing Ground — July 16.

Canada’s falling United Nations ranking is not only Jean Chretien’s failure, but Canada’s — ours. Chretien strove to reflect Trudeau’s earlier opinion that aboriginals should be Canadians like everyone else. Trudeau thought it ridiculous that Canada should have treaties with its own inhabitants.

When the Supreme Court split over whether the Nisga’a, who had no treaty, did in fact have title to their land, Trudeau was big enough to change his mind and had the 1972 White Paper retired. Chretien was unable to adjust and never forgave Trudeau for embarassing him.

But he was not alone. Frightened at the growing cost of keeping treaty obligations for native people we assumed would long ago have disappeared, the Ministry of Indian Affairs resolutely kept chiselling down on its obligations. Housing, infrastructure and education are glaring examples.

The 2003 First Nations Governance Act and the accompanying bills – – one limits land claims to a mere $7 million maximum! — keeps the same thinking.

We will not admit that we have stolen this land, that our title is based on the ridiculous right of discovery and that we want to maintain the colonialist thinking of bygone centuries. Yes, we Canadians! So good at exporting human rights for other countries to live up to. A Canadian even drafted the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Only when we go back to the beginning, admit what we have done, offer apologies, and make amends, may we gain genuine title to this land, and be able to hold up our heads in the international community. Suddenly we would have title, going right back to time immemorial.

Aboriginal elders say they accept newcomers are here for good, they only want recognition of what we did and are doing, and that fresh arrangements acceptable to all be arrived at, especially the return to them of the means towards sustaining economies of their own.

This is what the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommended, but Chretien and the Liberals have steadfastly ignored it. The UN keeps chiding Canada on that as it reviews our compliance with international covenants Canada has agreed to.

Some observers claim newcomers need some perceived lesser peoples in order to feel good about ourselves. Certainly that recent spate of Liberal legislation clearly indicates that newcomers think we know best what is good for the First Nations. It will be interesting to see how much energy Chretien will put into getting the rest of his four bills passed come September.

Barry McGrory

Toronto

______________________________________

Not the worst hole, but Don jail’s close

There’s no “parrot perch,” or hanging metal bar that is a staple of most Brazilian prisons. Prisoners on the perch have been stripped naked, thrown over the bar, hands and ankles tied, then beaten and jolted with electric shock until they pass out, or die.

At the Don, there’s no saw-horse, a device similar to the parrot perch, except that torturers get the added kick of being able to submerge a prisoner’s head in water while administering shock treatment to the genitals and anus.

I’ve seen these torture chambers.

As the Star’s Latin America correspondent for many years, I have seen more than my share of Third World prison conditions. I have nightmares to last a lifetime.

But I came away from a tour of Toronto’s Don jail this week thinking the biggest difference with any Third World hellhole I’ve ever seen is the absence of endemic physical torture.

That’s it.

Otherwise, with the possible exception of Haiti, where I once saw prisoners, some of them clearly mad, sitting deep in their own excrement, the Don jail could just as easily be the Guerrero state prison in Iguala, Mexico, or fit nicely into the Vieira Ferreira Neto penal complex in Niteroi, Brazil.

A vermin-infested cell is a vermin-infested cell.

In some ways, living conditions at the Don are worse.

That’s because prisoners don’t have the same access to a tropical outdoors and frequent family visits. They also live with constant, mind-numbing din and the psychological tension it creates.

I’d never been in a prison with that kind of decibel level before my Tuesday afternoon tour of the Don with Brant MPP Dave Levac.

As Liberal corrections critic, he wanted to revisit the jail this week after yet another Toronto judge condemned “medieval” conditions that don’t meet minimal standards for housing prisoners laid out by the United Nations.

Now, I wasn’t there at Carandiru prison in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1992 when military police put down a prison riot over brutal conditions, killing 111 inmates.

Clearly, with the gunfire and screaming, it must have been louder than the din I heard Tuesday.

But is that really what we want in Canada?

It would take little Canadian flags stitched on orange jumpsuits to differentiate between some of the inmates I saw — drooling, toothless, hair matted, talking to themselves — and prisoners in Brazil, Colombia or Venezuela.

It’s bad enough prisoners are treated with inhumanity anywhere in the world.

But, as the critics of Ontario’s corrections system point out, this jail is in our very own backyard.

Right here in east-end Toronto, prisoners live with vermin, overflowing toilets and the same all-encompassing stench of human excrement that knocks you off your feet when you walk into Vieira Ferreira Neto prison, not far from Rio’s Copacabana beaches, where the tourists romp.

One prisoner at the Don talked about being “peed on.” Happens all the time.

“We Canadians view ourselves as a just society and we like to think of ourselves that way,” says Richard Coleman, co-ordinator for Toronto’s drug treatment court and a veteran counsellor of Don jail inmates.

“But we’ve become a very hard-edged people, and it’s been coming on for many years now.”

We are, he adds, “punishing people in the most brutal ways imaginable.

“It is social science gone horribly wrong, because the reality is that the criminal justice system was created to reform, not merely to punish.”

Father Barry McGrory, a retired Catholic priest and volunteer at the Don jail, says he weeps to see such “devastation of the weakest” in our society.

“They are still human beings,” he says. “They are not people from Mars. I hear heartbreaking stories from these men, and the thing of it is, we, any one of us, could end up in that place.”

He, like Coleman, bristles at what he views as hypocrisy. He cringes at the comfortable Canadian notion that things are so much better for everyone here than in the Third World.

“I hate it when people say, `Oh, they should go and see what bad conditions really are. Go to the Third World,”’ he says. “How much worse can it get for a prisoner than in the Don?”

For me, the cold-shower realization of the many ways in which, like it or not, Toronto wears aspects of the worst of the Third World has been the hardest part of my transition back to Canada, and home.

It was one thing to walk into a prison in Brazil and chronicle horrible conditions in somebody else’s country for readers of the Toronto Star.

But it was a shock to see it in my own.

And we’re not just talking about conditions in the Don jail.

For years, for example, I wrote about the murdered women of Juarez, Mexico, the disposable women whose corpses — often in pieces — have been turning up in the Mexican border town. It’s estimated that, since the early 1990s, more than 300 women have been killed a stone’s throw across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.

Their deaths remain unsolved and, to be blunt, it’s not a big issue in Mexico, or anyplace else.

But I came home recently to a Canada where 500 aboriginal women have disappeared or been found murdered over the past 15 years in a similar atmosphere of neglect.

I was appalled.

In Canada, you say?

There’s more.

At any intersection in Acapulco or Cancun, Canadian tourists tsk-tsk — how sad! — at pregnant women begging for money, raggedy children holding their skirts or playing in the gutter.

A few years ago, a Canadian reporter wrote with disgust about a Mexican woman who agreed to sell her baby after his newspaper widely advertised for a child. He didn’t buy the baby, of course.

And, yet, in my city, this past January, a newborn baby was left to die, umbilical cord still attached, in the shadow of City Hall, left by a wandering, seemingly witless homeless woman, and found in the nick of time.

Every year, an estimated 300 babies — and probably far more — are born to women living in the streets of Toronto.

There are two ways, it seems, of looking at this issue.

You can say, “Oh, things could be worse. You could be living in Calcutta or Juarez. So get used to it.”

Or, you can say, as Father McGrory does, this is not acceptable anywhere.

But the problem is that Juarez is creeping closer to Toronto, and not the other way around.

“We are being swallowed by our dark side,” says McGrory.

The Don jail is Vieira Ferreira Neto — without the torture chambers.

And, without the Brazilian sunshine.

_______________________________________

Therese’s `little way’

The Ottawa Citizen

13 June 1999

Barry McGrory

Thank you, Donna Jacobs, for bringing our attention to Patrick Ahern’s editing of the letters between Ste. Therese of Lisieux and Maurice Belliere (“The way of a modern-day saint,” Citizen’s Weekly Books, May 30). They will help us find the real saint. What a wise Mother Superior to have arranged that correspondence!

The reviewer has obviously been touched by Therese, and has tried to show us the genius of her “little way.” It was an unshakable confidence in a loving Father that she tried to pass on to the aspiring young missionary. Extremely loved by her family as a child, she intuited that this gift originated in God the Father. That opened a path to God free of guilt or shame or anxiety, or any need to prove her love. Like the Franciscans, she seemed to know that God was utter goodness trying to share itself, “nothing but mercy and love,” she said. Maintaining that trust in the face of her scandalous trials was heroic.

Her light shone all the brighter as it came out of a Jansenistic, harsh darkness that had bedeviled French spirituality with its fascination with victimhood. I was disappointed to learn that even she herself was not entirely spared some of that, and the reviewer is justly puzzled by it. But I find no evidence that Jesus, who rejected the ascetic ways of John the Baptist, valued suffering in itself. He accepted it only reluctantly, prayed to be spared it, and complained of being abandoned. She found her vocation in being the heart of the Church, burning with love, and I would like to think that suffering would have been for her a consequence of that passion, as it was for Jesus.

A friend of mine points out the contrasts in her life. Doted on as a child, she almost dies of depression at 9. Always a loner, she embraces the whole world and is embraced by it. With only a few years of rural schooling, she is declared a Doctor (meaning teacher) of the Church in 1997, and ranks up there with Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Always loved herself, she’s very aware that others are not. Contemplating a painting of Jesus on the Cross, and his blood dripping from one of his hands seemingly wasted onto the ground, she resolves not to let escape unnoticed anyone’s pain, to which she compared that blood.

A young Aboriginal friend assured me that he knew how to run a cumbersome rug-cleaning machine I had rented, then proceeded to spill the whole soapy tank on the rug. I was about to fly off the handle, but caught a glimpse in his eyes of such extreme hurt and failure that I winced and cooled off instantly. To this day I can feel his pain I was about to compound. In spite of myself, I had stumbled across her “little way.” (One day that man saved my life.)

She was so real to Father George Larose, my boyhood pastor at St. Theresa’s Church in Ottawa, that one day I said to my mother, “He talks about her as though she was his own sister.” “Well, she is,” came her reply.

Barry McGrory,

Toronto

__________________________________

Coalition for a Public Inquiry into the Death of Dudley George

Father Barry McGrory

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

Monday 22 June 1998

Father Barry McGrory: Citizens have the right to bring their concerns forward on any matter to their representatives, but it is a privilege to be able to address members of the Legislative Assembly about such an urgent matter as how we treat our neighbours who are materially poor, and I thank you for this time.

I am Barry McGrory, a spokesperson from the Coalition for an Inquiry into the Death of Dudley George, formed last December on the anniversary of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You will recall that Ann Pohl of the coalition addressed you on June 8 and explained the broad base we represent, including Dudley’s family, aboriginal organizations, faith groups, unions, anti-racism groups and others.

I am also involved with the Aboriginal Rights Coalition and for some years have worked on aboriginal issues in Canada. I am a Catholic priest of the archdiocese of Ottawa, currently living in Toronto. I have lived in this province all my life, except for two years’ graduate studies in Rome and three years as a teacher and chaplain in Quebec at Bishop’s University and Champlain College.

The present government has been slyly creative about the naming of its bills, usually trying, in the best Orwellian fashion, to euphemistically put as positive a light as possible on the matter. But in this case, it blatantly speaks of unionization as though it were a disease calling for eradication. That sounds foreign to me. The UN Charter of Rights, as mentioned, protects the right of workers to organize into unions, in article 23, section 4. It did that 50 years ago. Pope Leo XIII affirmed the same principle 108 years ago.

_____________________________________

Priest given warning Judge clarifies sex-case order

Toronto Globe and Mail

20 November 1993

THOMAS CLARIDGE

Toronto ONT — BY THOMAS CLARIDGE Courts Reporter

TORONTO The former head of a Roman Catholic organization that assists native Canadians in isolated parishes was warned yesterday that he will face jail unless he abides by terms of a probation order issued after he admitted to sexually assaulting a 17-year-old youth.

Mr. Justice Hugh Locke of the Ontario Court’s General Division issued the warning when Rev. Barry McGrory appeared before him seeking clarification of his terms of probation.

Father McGrory was given a suspended sentence and placed on three years probation by Judge Locke in August when he pleaded guilty to one of two charges of sexual assault involving the same complainant, an Indian whom he had befriended. At the sentencing on Aug. 27, the court was told Father McGrory resigned as president of the Catholic Church Extension Society in November, 1991, three months after the incident that led to the guilty plea.

The second charge was laid in December, 1991, after the same youth admitted to having attacked Father McGrory when faced with unwanted advances. Judge Locke was told the youth was later acquitted of a charge of assault causing bodily harm.

The probation order required the priest to refrain from contact with native groups and postadolescent youths and to continue taking psychiatric therapy. He was also prohibited from being in the company of any male under the age of 18 except in the presence of an adult.

_______________________________________

‘Focus’ goes off the air but might return next fall

The Ottawa Citizen

02 December 1989

Tina Reilly

After more than seven years on the air, an animated and frank interfaith radio discussion on CJSB every Sunday morning is taking a breather.

Focus Religion was an informal, unscripted show designed to bring together different religious viewpoints on some topical and controversial issues.

Rev. Tom Sherwood, pastor at Orleans United Church, and Rabbi Arnold Fine of the Agudath Israel congregation in Ottawa, over the years have attracted thousands of devoted listeners.

Along with their guests, each week from 7:35 to 8 a.m. they discussed everything from sex and abortion to politics and clergy burnout.

But Fine is leaving soon for Israel on sabbatical, which will put the show on hold for several months. He said Focus Religion might return to CJSB in a reworked format next fall.

“All that is still very much in the planning stages,” said Fine.

Focus Religion was dealt a blow in 1986 when Barry McGrory, a Catholic priest, left the show, say Sherwood and Fine. If it resumes in the fall, the duo hope to find another priest who can join in on a permanent basis. The show’s audience hit a peak of 15,000 people in 1986. Since then, the audience had dropped to “a few thousand.”

“The original show worked so well because all three of us were there every week and got to know one another,” said Fine. “We really need that Catholic element to make the show what it was.”

Sherwood and Fine say Focus Religion often involved spirited discussion, but voices were never raised.

“We didn’t always agree, which was an important element to the program,” said Sherwood. “The point was to show that we could disagree, whether from a religious perspective or a personal one, and still be friends.”

And the show was always spontaneous, with a “two-minute meeting in the studio before flicking the switch,” he said.

The last show was broadcast Nov. 19.

_______________________________________

Former Holy Cross pastor works with native missions

The Ottawa Citizen

20 February 1988

Rev. R.G. MacNeil

Father Barry McGrory is no longer working in Ottawa and people miss his involvement in the Ottawa scene.

He was pastor of Holy Cross Parish for 12 years, active in ecumenical, peace and social justice causes and a member of the “Focus Religion” panel on radio station CJSB, along with Rabbi Arnie Fine and the Rev. Tom Sherwood of the United Church.

At the end of last year Barry became the head of the Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada. His new job in Toronto is to visit church missions to learn of their needs first hand. When I called his office this week, he was on visits to Ft. McMurray, Norman Wells, Inuvik, Coppermine and Yellowknife. Catholic Church Extension under his direction is expected to raise over $2 million a year to support church work with native people and in isolated parts of Canada.

The Canadian missions will have a capable spokesperson in Father McGrory. During a sabbatical year in 1986-87 he unknowingly did two things that prepared him for his future job. In July 1986 he participated in an annual Denendeh seminar which takes a group of people from southern Canada and exposes them to the social, political and spiritual realities of the native people of the Northwest Territories.

While there, he was asked to celebrate mass at a wilderness camp for some Dene families.

Following the mass, a native woman asked him to be their priest during his upcoming rest from parish ministry. “I was stunned and I gave a evasive answer with the intention of doing something about this ministry at a later date,” he said.

He was already committed for the year-long National Defence College at Kingston with 42 people from upper management.

His experience with the Dene people and the defence college, which visited every province and territory of Canada as well as 17 foreign countries, many of them in the developing world, ably equipped him for Catholic church extension work. His new job is to go to mission territories and see their situation in sufficient depth to bring the real needs of missions to the attention of Catholic Canadians.

“In this job I am giving at least half an answer to the Dene woman who asked me to be their priest.”

Father McGrory is a commerce graduate of St. Francis Xavier University, and a theology graduate of the University of Ottawa. After ordination he took a doctor of theology degree from Thomas Aquinas University in Rome, taught at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Que. and at St. Paul’s University in Ottawa.

From 1966-86 he did pastoral work in Ottawa parishes, finishing with 12 years at Holy Cross where he initiated a twinning relationship with St. Francis Xavier parish in Managua, Nicaragua. Ottawa people made regular exchange visits Nicaraguans in a program of “people to people” Christian understanding.

Those wishing to help Father McGrory with Canadian missionary projects may contact him at 67 Bond St., Toronto. M5B 1X5. Telephone (416) 863-9550.

____________________________________

LIBERATION THEOLOGY

Kingston Whig Standard

18 April 1987

Barry McGrory

A CRY FOR ‘BREAD, A ROOF, A JOB AND DIGNITY’ LIBERATION THEOLOGY: ESSENTIAL FACTS ABOUT THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT IN LATIN AMERICA AND BEYOND BY PHILLIP BERRYMAN

JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, a Roman Catholic priest in Uruguay, advanced a startling argument during the Jimmy Carter presidency, with its focus on civil rights. At the time, Uruguay had the highest per capita number of prisoners in the world (according to Amnesty International). And though his own civil rights had been violated, he agreed with the military leaders then managing his country who rejected criticism from abroad concerning those same human rights abuses.

Why? The cause of the violations, he maintained, was the impossible financial constraints imposed by wealthy nations upon poor nations such as his own. It was therefore hypocritical for those wealthy countries to criticize regimes for oppression required to maintain the status quo. Why speak of freedom of the press, for example, in a country where 80 per cent can not afford a newspaper and 50 per cent can not read?

The anecdote is an example of the radical nature of liberation theology: here we see one of its foremost advocates adopting a quite illogical position. And yet it’s impossible to dismiss a movement whose influence stretches even to the Vatican itself.

Phillip Berryman, in his book Liberation Theology, gives us a sympathetic, but not uncritical, view of the theology typified by Father Segundo’s outburst. Berryman worked as a Catholic priest in Panama City (1963 to 1975), then as the American Friends Service Committee representative in Latin America (1976 to 1980). The author of two books on Central America, he is now married and the father of three, working in Philadelphia as a researcher.

Liberation theology emerged more than 25 years ago out of experience — an approach to God that comes from working within the struggle of the poor for justice. It is a disciplined attempt to explicate, defend and criticize that experience in light of the Gospel and to provide a basis for the pastoral methods that flow from it.

Exponents of liberation theology place the movement’s origins with the 16th-century Dominican monk Bartolome de las Casas, and the dozen or so bishops who stood with him in defending Central American Indians from Spanish colonial authorities. Then, as now, those clerics who confronted the powerful were often eliminated: the Bishop of Managua, Antonio de Valdivieso, was stabbed to death in 1550. But liberation theology more clearly emerged in the Latin American Church after Vatican II in 1963. This was a worldwide gathering of Catholic bishops in Rome that attempted to renew the Church. It was then that the Church began to shift from being a staunch supporter of the quasi-feudal establishment in Latin America — the oligarchies, the military and the United States were the three other pillars — to a more prophetic institution attempting to be on the side of the poor.

At Medellin, Colombia in 1968, Latin American bishops made a dramatic plea for the transformation of society. The bishops of the central-west region of Brazil minced no words in calling capitalism “the greatest evil, sin accumulated, the rotten root, the tree that produces fruits of … poverty, hunger, sickness and death.” By then, the richest one per cent of Brazil’s population controlled a greater share of the national income (17 per cent) than the entire bottom half of the population (13.7 per cent). How did they get so poor? More importantly, how do they escape their poverty? For poverty, even if it can bring an openness to God, is dehumanizing.

Liberation theology emphasizes the humanness of Jesus, who, they argue, aligned himself with the poor and was crucified for his stance. But he was vindicated in his resurrection. In liberation theology the risen Christ is more prominent than the crucified Christ: it is the difference between passive resignation to one’s fate and active steps towards change. This perhaps explains the more than 100,000 martyrs the Latin American Church has suffered in the past few decades. The figure, which includes teenage catechists and bishops, is only an estimate and is likely quite conservative.

Phillip Berryman outlines, among others, the work of Paulo Freire, educator; James Schall, Presbyterian missionary; and Gustavo Gutierrez, the Peruvian priest who seems to have coined the term “liberation theology.” Berryman describes the fascinating struggle within the Church over this brand of theology — a struggle that may be as important and alas, as divisive, as the Reformation. But Berryman is at his best when he describes the pastoral practices that flow from such an orientation at the barrio level.

Pastoral workers moved out into the poor communities to form small action groups that came to be known as base communities. Led by lay people, they began to take on a life of their own and saw the Church existing not for itself but for the society around it. For perhaps the first time the dispossessed were urged to find their voices, to consider other possibilities. Profoundly egalitarian, the action groups never involved more than two per cent of the population in Latin American countries, yet they disturbed authorities more accustomed to an exclusively hierarchical power structure.

A theology for the poor gradually became a theology of the poor, as their views came to be known and appreciated. Even bishops claim to have been evangelicized by such groups!

Although liberation theology is actually very conservative in its doctrine (God is assumed to exist; what kind of God is another matter), it has nevertheless stirred controversy: in a 7,000-word Instruction on Certain Aspects of Liberation Theology, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Vatican agency supervising doctrine, called attention to certain “deviations.” He wrote that liberation theology made faulty economic and political assumptions, that it undermined authority, and that it falsified Christianity, reducing salvation, for instance, to the struggle for justice.

Berryman lets the reader decide if the charges are true. But he does point out that liberation theology’s supposed links to Marxism stem from the fact that Marxism, until recently, pervaded the intellectual milieux of Latin America, just as psychology and therapy pervade North America. The liberationists rarely face Marxism head on, but rather borrow from it critically and eclectically.

They might agree with Marx’s observation that under capitalism, money can become a fetish with more value than human beings, but they foresee no perfect classless society in the future. They present, rather, a socialist utopia that releases energies directed towards a more just society and that might come to approximate that utopia. They rarely speak of violence, but when they do it seems to be in search of a non-violent way to change society.

Cardinal Ratzinger says that hearts must change first, institutions later. A liberation theologian would reply that hearts change as institutions are changed. Inexplicably, Berryman only mentions Cardinal Ratzinger’s more recent document published in April 1986, On Christian Freedom and Liberation, in which he offers a more benign view of liberation theology. Its various adherents are now co-operating on the systematic presentation in more than 50 volumes of a complete liberation theology.

The liberationists, Berryman says, see themselves bringing to resolution the 19th-century independence struggle, and would situate themselves in the camp of the world’s excluded — the poor, blacks, women — now coming to the fore.

Liberation theology has irreversibly marked at least the Catholic Church, for even the Pope and the Canadian bishops give evidence of adopting their viewpoint at least partially. As the debt crisis worsens in Latin America, and as the cry from the poor for “bread, a roof, a job and dignity” intensifies, we will have to listen to these theologians more than ever. Phillip Berryman has given us a good place to start. Barry McGrory is a Roman Catholic pastor based in an Ottawa diocese and now studying at the National Defence College in Kingston. He has traveled throughout Latin America..

_______________________________________

Listen to the Natives

Letter to the Editor

The Ottawa Citizen

19 September 1985

Barry McGrory

CBC Radio has decided to eliminate particular interest programs such as “Identities” and “Our Native Land,” not because of financial restraints – they are very inexpensively produced – but because focusing on such groups is no longer favored by Vice-President Margaret Lyons. It seems that these groups are to be heard from within mainstream programming.

It was precisely because they were not being heard from that such programs were originally conceived, and are still enthusiastically supported. The mainstream needs to hear minority viewpoints if it is not to become smug, stagnant, and stultifying. The Canadian mosaic does not want to give in to the melting pot thesis.

This comes at a time when the federal government is taking measures to remedy the fact that, while four per cent of the labor force is composed of visible minorities, only 1.7 per cent of federal public servants come from them.

“Our Native Land” was my only opportunity to really hear what Indians and Inuit had to say. I want to keep hearing it.

Barry McGrory

Ottawa

_________________________________________

Anne Roche (The Split Shaking Catholicism’s Foundations – Dec. 19) has never forgiven us for Vatican II. Even Pius XII, who introduced the biblical and liturgical renewal, and who spurred the critical examination of sexual ethics by permitting natural birth control, is not spared her ire.

Toronto Globe and Mail

24 December 1980

Barry McGrory

Ottawa ONT — I don’t begrudge her own craving for tough discipline and sacrifice, but why must she, in the best pharisaical tradition, so relish imposing it so harshly on others? Why so mean?

Her style doesn’t seem to reflect the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But neither did 19th-century Catholicism! John XXIII tried to restore the Gospel as the heart and soul of Catholicism. John Paul II would hardly want anything different.

Barry McGrory, Holy Cross Parish, Ottawa

________________________________

40 Responses to McGrory: Barry McGrory

Barry McGrory is a pedophile — articulate predators are the most dangerous. I civilly sued The Ottawa Diocese in 1997 for sexual abuse. The priest who abused me was Barry McGrory. I know of at least 5 other people he abused and I am sure there are many more. I was assured by the Diocese that he would not be allowed to call himself a retired priest nor ever work in a counseling capacity again. All lies. He continues to call himself a retired priest, work with others, and I am sure abusing them — he is a fraud and a very disturbed man. The Canadian press does not do there vetting on this man — he is a convicted pedophile — that is the only thing that should be written after his name, NOT retired priest.

To Anonymous: your statement is just as serious as the case of Raymond Gareth Stanford (GARY), a Convicted St. John’s school teacher. Check it out in the ‘Of Interest/Non-Clerical post. This doesn’t suprise me.

To Anonymous,
I’m wondering how we can hold the Ottawa archdiocese accountable for protecting these priests who they know were convicted? I sense your anger and frustration with the church regarding McGrory, I felt revictimized last spring when I discovered that the priest who’d been charged and convicted in British Columbia in 1992 for assaults against myself and another victim, (Fr. Jack McCann) had been given permission to work in Ottawa since his release from prison. I still don’t trust that he’s fully been removed from any type of contact with children.

Anonymous,
I have been contacted by Father Barry McGrory. He advised me that he was shocked to see you allege that he is a paedophile. He wants me to remove your comment.

I suggested to Father McGrory that he say what he wants to see to you here as a comment, and I offered to post his comment if he doesn’t know how. He declined. He believes the onus is on me to remove your comment.

We have had a few more exchanges. He is using words such as “slanderous” and “libelous and actionable in law.” I decided to bring it to an end by posting this comment.

As everyone who follows this site knows I decided long ago to refer to those who sexually abuse children – teens included – as sexual predators or molesters. The decision came after learning that no matter which classification was used it created an uproar somewhere, and that the “experts” regularly disagree on definitions.

As I told Father McGrory, and as I said many years ago, most people refer to molesters as paedophiles. They just do. They always have, and, I believe they probably always will. The average person does not know what an ephobophile, or hebophile or pederast is – they just say paedophile. However, I suggest to you Anonymous, and to one and all, that unless a clerical molester has been formally labelled a paedophile in a court of law they may take exception and there may be legal ramifications.

I have no proof that Father Barry McGrory is a paedophile. He tells me he is not. I do have proof that he, a Roman Catholic priest, molested a 17-year-old native boy. And I do have proof that he was convicted in a court of law for molesting that boy.

Anonymous, if you have proof that Father McGrory is a paedophile, then away you go. If, however, you don’t have documentation which proves he is a paedophile then best to use another word.

Choose your words carefully people. If you have no legal proof that an individual is a paedophile best avoid use of the term completely. That it seems is where we are at. We seem to have reached some sort of threshold where the ultimate insult to a clerical sexual predator is to be referred to as a paedophile. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I do know that that’s the way it is.

Nearly a year ago I blogged “Watch the language.” I think of that now. It seems we are entering an era where there is other cause to watch the language – legal cause. So please, a reminder to one and all, watch the language. They are watching.

Personally, I am offended by “Father” and “priest”…he should be able to pick any of the others suggested…make it “Barry’s Pick”…to be fair. It was his choice then and it still is his choice now.
Sylvia, where did he fit the presence of Christ in this “conversation” from the “steam roller” of the Legal kind???…
He knows what he is when he looks in the mirror…and the crack is not in the mirror!
Extremely pitiful, whatever definition is attached to the condition…
jg

Sylvia: Is this man still a priest? If he is, then he shouldn’t be. All such perverts MUST BE EXPELLED from the priesthood! Every single one of them have lost the right (IMHO) to remain within the ranks of the clergy.

Let me know if this develops to a point where it requires you to obtain any legal help. I will start a fund raising drive for you!!

January 28, 2012 at 10:34 am presents the record of the online comment from Tim Moyle in which he is using the phrases “such perverts” and “must be expelled from the priesthood”. A few minutes earlier at 10:30, Moyle commented for the record on the “No shame” thread that these adjectives for McGrory “perfectly apply to this man”: namely “perverted,” “predator,” and “criminal.” It is very likely that Moyle had already read Sylvia’s warning advisory about language which she posted Friday evening, January 27, 2012 at 8:57 pm. Sylvia clearly directed: “watch the language” and “choose your words carefully.” Now I find it disturbing that first thing on Saturday morning, Tim Moyle launches into inflammatory language, and then offers to “start a fund raising drive” – “if this develops to a point where it requires you to obtain any legal help.” The question is how the situation could “develop” if people making comments to this blog would simply respect Sylvia’s wishes. It seems to be that the proper cautions to take in discussing McGrory in future would be to acknowledge that his criminal conviction for sexual assault was in the past, namely August 1993 – over 18 years ago. Therefore to refer to McGrory with epithets ‘in the present tense’ could indeed have legal ramifications. I specifically address my concerns to Tim Moyle. I myself would never want to pour oil on a fire, would you?

Cheryl: I understand your point. However his objection was to the use of ONE word: ‘pedophile’. He is still a convicted sex offender. He stands proven to be a predator priest. He is demonstrably a pervert. These are titles that he has earned by his misconduct and abuse. The passing of time has not changed this.

My note was to encourage Sylvia to stand up to a bully. She does not stand alone. As to the ‘oil on fire’ remark: suffice it to say that sometimes a little fire fueled by the fire of indignation in the response to the threats of a bully can be the best response there is. Fire can be antiseptic when trying to rid the Church of such criminal individuals. I appreciate that you might disagree, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I am wrong. If my remarks caused any menace to Sylvia, or if she thinks my comments inappropriate, she is free to (and would not hesitate to) remove them. I trust her judgment.

Final point: This blog is an act of profound love for the Church! Sylvia thinks enough of it that she demands clergy of every rank to do better; to expect it to act justly in reaching out to those most wounded – the victims; to better resemble the Bride of Christ that the Church is called to be by God himself. ANYONE and EVERYONE (pardon me for shouting) that claims to love the Catholic Church should rush forward with whatever is necessary so that Sylvia’s voice continues to sing out until the institutional Church finally reforms its policies and practices in these matters. If this blog were threatened by legal action, damned right I would organize in its defense and contribute with whatever I could collect and offer. I have told Sylvia many times that I believe she is a modern day Catherine of Sienna. Like that sainted woman, she is calling the hierarchy to turn away from a sinful path and return to being a vehicle of virtue for the world. Her voice should not be silenced. It should be amplified so that it is heard in every corner of the Church. I only wish that I could do more… and Sylvia knows that as well.

Fr Moyle’s words are disturbing? Really? Here is what is disturbing: predator priests. Convicted clerical sexual abusers of minors. Perverts who stalk our children and violate our trust. And then – incredibly – have the gall to threaten Sylvia with legal action. And that is a tactic of bullies – by the way – to get the spotlight off them and onto someone else’s supposed errors.

Sure, we can watch our words. I agree. But let us keep the spotlight firmly where it belongs. Many of us are ‘mad as hell’ about these cases and the important thing is to keep speaking up, and not be scared into silence. We know from reading cases on this site that sexual abusers rely heavily on silence, and, on webs of silence.

Personally I like reading Fr Moyle’s postings as it brings me some comfort to know that there is someone from the church who shows sincere and appropriate anger about these sexual abuse cases.

The term ‘pedophile’ is properly used when referring to someone sexually attracted to a child. A seventeen year old isn’t the same as a seven year old. A homosexual man is attracted to a seventeen year old boy, a pedophile to a seven year old.

…and nobody would be terribly offended if they developed a sick attraction to a dictionary in their spare time! …and damaged the pages of that book!
Defend everything and anything you wish to somehow justify or qualify…for whatever reason or rational, Glen…and this is a recurring concern of yours on various posts!
Try to defend the children and not play the linguist! …or keep skirting this issue that is obviously “occupying” your thoughts…
It makes not the slightest difference.
Both morally wrong and profoundly condemnable. No shades of grey unless your lights are turned off!…
7 years old and 17 years old are the same to me: children!

I agree. A 17 year old boy has no power in the world. There are a few exceptions, but, he typically has no long-term work, decent income, or family of his own – and still largely depends on the advice, mentorship, and, needless to say, decency of adults. In my mind, and in my experience as a high school teacher, he is not far from being a 7 year old with regards to his social and psychological dependency – though he has physically matured. Adolescents have a great deal of confusion in their lives – predators take advantage of that confusion. We should not even have to make the distinction between children and young adults. To use powerless youth of any age for their bodies is to damage them for life. It is therefore immoral and unethical – against church teaching – and against the criminal code of Canada.

I response to Father Tim Moyle’s blog of 28 January 2012 at 1:54 pm, yes, Father Barry McGrory is still very much a Roman Catholic priest. I know that referring to him and other convicted clerical predators as Father annoys many, but, as I have said in the past, to me it is a constant and sad reminder that, despite their criminal convictions for predatory behavior, these men have been allowed to remain in the priesthood.

Father, I am flattered and humbled at the comparison to St. Catharine, but I have a long long way to go to come close to that great Saint. But, I thank you 🙂

Re 7-year-old or 17-year old victims – I think all of this is red herring business. True, there are now legalities involved, but, beyond that, does it make one iota of difference to the victim? does the victim of a clerical predator heave a sigh of relief that his/her molester is NOT legally defined as a paedophile? I really don’t think so.

Are we to believe that the priest who preys on and molests/abuses/assaults a 17-year-old is a few moral notches above the priest who molests the 7-year-old? I don’t think so.

Are we to believe that the loss of faith incurred by the large majority of victims of clerical sexual abuse is any different be the victim 7 or 17? I don’t so.

Are we to believe that the anguish of parents who find out they were betrayed by their parish priest is greater if the priest’s victim is 17 vs 7? I don’t think so.

Finally, as far as I’m concerned the priests who preys on a 17-year-old has shown himself every bit as unfit to be a priest as the priest who preys on the 7-year-old.

Sylvia: When we consider as well that the stages of maturation have been pushed far further than they were before. (2 generations ago, if you were approaching your 16th birthday, you were likely preparing to leave home and start a family.) Today, rare indeed is the case where a child would be prepared to face independent life at such a young age. Most 17 yr old kids are still children in terms of their social and emotional maturation, even if their bodies may say otherwise. You are absolutely correct to state that there is no difference in genus, kind or degree between sexually abusing a 7 or a 17 year old. That’s the reason why the Criminal Code prohibits such adult/child acts… because it is so harmful to children who are not prepared to defend their own best interests. Given the biological onslaught of adolescence, one would think that a 17 year old is even more in need of protection from the law. Their judgment is most certainly impaired by a powerful cocktail of hormones – a situation that a predator takes advantage of usually by grooming the victim from an early age and thus able to manipulate them for their own pleasure.

If anyone were to compare me, yours truly Cheryl, to St. Catherine of Sienna, the last thing I would ever do – the last thing I would ever do – would be to say I am “flattered and humbled” and then say “thank you.” I am certain such a compliment will never come my way, and that fact prevents me from the obligation I otherwise would have to denounce the person who made that mistake, in no uncertain terms. In fact, making excessive compliments of this kind, and receiving compliments of this kind, are exactly among the behaviours which saints throughout the history of the faith have abhorred. I have studied the life and writings of St. Catherine of Sienna, from direct historical sources. Using her name here would be funny, if it were not so pathetic.

Getting back to McGrory, whether he gets a lawyer to write a nasty letter threatening a lawsuit, or not, he is an old man pushing 80 by now, who seems to have sublimated his yearnings for handsome, Geronimo-teenagers into fashionable leftwing activism on behalf of native issues. Of course, he really hurt his victims just as much as if they truly were children. But he is also entitled to our acknowledgment that he has already been punished by the legal system, has not repeated his offence(s) apparently, and is entitled not to be the brunt of taunting invective on this blog.

The modern Church chose not to remove him from the priesthood. The modern Church is not one I support monetarily or in any other way, for this and other reasons…. such as throwing the name of St. Catherine of Sienna around. The only reason on earth why people stick with this modern Church is that they are evidently so irretrievably committed to remaining ignorant. Their sensibilities regarding moral imperatives have been eroded, so that it is permitted for the sin of pride to be fed because the modern Church has taught all little boys and girls that we ‘must accept compliments gracefully’, instead of being horribly ashamed at them, as is proper. The whole problem now can be justly called ‘bad will.’

No souls are being saved here. In fact, hell is enlarging itself. And on that note,
I write my final comment on this blog, as I understand now its reason for being.

Cheryl: Excessive compliment? I hardly think so. The principle difference between the two is essentially technological. Catherine was severely limited in how she expressed he call for the Pope to return to holiness by leaving Avignon. If she had had the internet at her fingertips I have little doubt that she’d be blogging just as Sylvia does.

The fact that you (an others) cannot see that both women are doing the same thing, (calling the Church to holiness) each using the tools of their times saddens me. I interpret such blindness to mean either one has given up entirely on the Church, or is so dedicated to it that they cannot acknowledge its failure when she fails to act as it preaches. In the long run, neither will be good for the Church. As +Fulton Sheen preached, believes need to live with mercy and truth. If we are blind to one, we cannot clearly see the other. Catherine then and Sylvia now firmly fix their focus on both. This is why they are successful.

Discount my analysis if you wish, but you have neither right nor reason to question Sylvia’s intent, any more than you could for others who called the Church from its sinful ways before her.

This sure went from bad to worse! We started with a threat of legal action by McGrory to a banishment to hell by Cheryl…who by now should know to ignore at least some of the comments by Tim Moyle. When things deteriorate to this level, his interventions are never far away…whether he makes sense or not. Maybe because for most it is hard to believe he is sincere…like a double agent…a traitor…a snitch…I sincerely don’t know why except that he should have the insight to realize this.
I too felt some discomfort at his sugar coating but sometimes if you can’t say anything good you may as well shut up…So I kept my discomfort and tried to understand…

The last time you went on like this, C-H, you thought only victims were given any credibility so you made the statement that you as well had been abused at 6 yrs old, I believe it was. Then you went away for a while, never to return…maybe you needed to return?…
Now what is most striking is your statement that one should be “horribly ashamed at compliments”…”as is proper”…???!!! I for one would greatly appreciate if you spoke with your heart and not from all the clutter in your head…all the accumulation of facts from history, from your perspective of the world as it should be or what it should return to…
Self-esteem, pride, recognition, appreciation or sometimes just the plain will to get out of bed in the morning and continue…needs a little nudge from a friend.
Moyle went overboard… Sylvia with her continued faith in the Church and her desire to be a good Catholic, still, answered politely. As Christians, we are all imitators at different levels, or we should be. It would keep us humble!…with a light on the shore when the sea gets rough, to return home…
Cheryl-Helene, we are here to help save a child…one child to call this a success. If you came to save souls, be gentle and it “Will be” …If you have Faith, hold on to it and banish the “Anger”…because you carry it like a cancer!
You don’t need to be “better”…just do your “best” like the rest of us in this imperfect world.
Have Faith and loose some of the information overload…
A gentle boot in the “ars” from a friend! Take your time…

It disrespects victims of pedophilia and distracts from the seriousness of that crime by referring to seventeen year olds as children. A seventeen year old has much more knowledge of himself and sexuality in general than a seven year old. They are two different subjects. As Fr. Moyle pointed out it wasn’t too long ago someone of that age was married and working full time. If at that age you have consensual sex with someone of the same gender then you’re a homosexual. A seven year old does not have consensual sex with anyone. The majority of incidents in the Church have been homosexual, not pedophilia. However, both need to be dealt with.

Do not minimize the act, the child by legal definition is not the predator nor is he the person who should be focused upon as being to blame or responsible to blame. The decision to act on his sexual impulse and convicted of such was the adult in a position of trust. Rodeo or Rodao still the same outcome, a crime was committed and the onus was on the adult to not be in such a position. As result the person’s credibility has been and should remain in question.

As a former employee of Holy Cross Parish in the 1970’s, I would like to add to the comments concerning Barry McGrory. My comments are from a secular or Non Catholic point of view. They may offend some. I mean no offense to anyone and hope people will take them in the proper context.
My comments are twofold, concerning McGrory in particular and the Catholic Church in general. As an employee of Holy Cross, I noticed that he spent a lot of his time drinking and playing hockey with his buddies. But hey there is no law against that. I found Barry McGrory very rude and arrogant often belittling others and taking credit for actions and ideas often initiated by others. Therefore it comes as no surprise that he would attempt to charge a person who resisted his sexual advances and tried to defend himself. I am also not surprised that he would bully Sylvia from the comments that were made on this blog by Anonymous. (Anonymous: You may remember me from Holy Cross Parish)Whatever term that is used to describe him is completely irrelevant. Whether he forced himself on boys, men, girls or women; whether he is heterosexual, gay or bisexual, it does not matter. It is wrong and a criminal act for him to force himself on anybody and I believe he should be punished by mandatory time in prison. If Mcgrory wants to argue that he is not a pedophile but a molester, it makes absolutely no difference to his victims. What I noticed about McGrory was that he tried to appear liberal and open minded, using the trust put in him by impressionable youth (especially those from broken and problem homes) to become close to them. Lots of my friends thought it was cool to hang out and drink with a “cool” priest. I have both male and female friends that are now scarred for life and were frightened to say anything at the time because of Mcgrory’s position in the community. I hope my parents understand now when I told them I was safer playing music in a bar then working at Holy Cross. But the problem still remains that Mcgrory still sees himself as a victim and has no compassion for the true victims. I call on him to surrender himself to the police, accept to spend the rest of his days on earth in prison and beg his creator for forgiveness. We can go back and forth on this blog forever but until McGrory changes, it means nothing at all. I ask him to make an example of himself and show the world and his victims that he is truly sorry and accepts his punishment for all the pain he has caused. It would be a great chance for the Catholic Church to change their policy from protecting criminals to caring for their victims.
The second part of my comments concerns the Catholic Church in general. If a secular person would have been charged with the same crime as Mcgrory they would not have received the protection of the Catholic Church. Or the financial support that the church has spent on lawyers to protect Mcgrory from the law, prison and the truth. This money could have easily been spent on feeding the poor, consoling the victims or providing education and counseling for victims of this sort of crime. I can understand why these people have lost faith in an institution that speaks one way and acts in a totally different manner. Theo Fleury(former NHL hockey player) has said that Canada is a Disneyland for these type of criminals. The actions of the Catholic Church prove him right. I surely do not want to offend any Catholics so my apologies if my remarks do. I mean no offense. I know of many good Catholics who are now clinging to their faith. They deserve much better leadership than they are getting from the church. Canadian society is changing and now views these crimes as very serious. If the Catholic Church keeps protecting these criminals, they may have to accept the fact that the majority of Canadians may want the Catholic Church to be declared an unlawful organization where members will be tolerated not encouraged. This will hurt the majority of Catholics who are completely innocent of such crimes but must accept the fact the Canada is a secular democracy. I would hate to see this happen. While I am not a Christian, I have to agree with the message of love and compassion that Jesus Christ spread. It appears that Barry Mcgrory and the Catholic Church hierarchy have not received this message yet.

You can imagine my surprise at coming across this blog and revelations of Barry McGrory’s 1993 admission and subsequent conviction for sexual assault. I sympathise with the victims in these cases. I was 17 myself at the time when then ‘father’ McGrory took me in and helped me get my life back on track, homeless, I lived with him for the better part of a year. Not being a Catholic I can remember some great existential debates and humourous asides that always revealed a man of great committment to his faith and yet a surprisingly open mind. At no time was I approached inappropriately or made to feel uncomfortable with my sexuality or Agnostic perspective. Sometimes I regret not having attended any of his sermons on Sunday even out of curiosity but back then I sensed that I was to be more inspired by empirical evidence than anything else. When John Lennon sang “nothing’s gonna change my world” Barry was quick to quip, “that’s ridiculous!” and so I began to question even the Beatles! I think I understand where Sylvia’s blog here is attempting to maintain a sense of humanity and purpose in asking such high authorities as Churches, to take a stricter responsibility for their deviant priests. I suppose the convicted ones, even if they are not jailed, should do the right thing and resign, celibacy is obviously not a healthy life choice for them. The question is one of actual circumstances, in any legal case as seen through third party eyes and having not maintained any contact with Mr. McGrory over the years I know nothing of the case, only a deep disappointment that he was yet another priest involved in one these abhorant cases. Nevertheless the case was settled over 20 years ago and did not allude to a repeating pattern of behaviour so I wish him well as I still keep fond memories and a special appreciation for his help when I was a teenager in those days. The Catholic Church itself should get a psychological grip on this problem and reform the strict celibacy rules imposed on their exclusively male priesthood. Repressing healthy sexual activity is likely the prime reason so many cases of deviant behaviour crop up. It is an inhumane modus operendi to impose on a human being and I am not surprised at the ugly ramifications we see particularly regarding priests. In the end, Barry McGrory’s or anyone’s life’s work should not necessarily be characterized in a cavalier way regarding momentary lapses of reason but rather by the grander sum of a life’s albeit imperfect best intentions. If there is a god then I am sure it’ll all work out as one is free to imagine because; as a thing is viewed, so it faithfully appears. Peace and love.

EXCUSE ME!!!! Peace and love?!?!!!?? McGrory sexually and mentally abused a young girl from the age of 13 for years. He raped and abused a young boy and how many more young people we don’t know about. And then the man has the gall to not only blame it on some addiction called hebophilia but to actually sound proud that he is such a man of the church and has been cured and is at peace is absolutely f*****g ridiculous. What about those he abused? How do they find peace? Artist3d and the rest of the Archdiocese of Ottawa can all commune together. Peace and love.

I feel bad because back in the late 70s my friends and I were in our 20s maybe a little out of his comfort zone but we knew he wasn’t right and he was after us a couple times for poaching some of his girls. I know he tried a couple times to get a friend of mine that was male but nothing obvious only the start I guess and being rebuffed stayed away. We didn’t say anything and I feel now like we should have. I feel bad for those that were hurt and now wish I had done more than just write him off as a weird guy.

It is anticipated that further charges will be laid against Father Barry McGrory this coming Friday. After charges are laid a court date will be set to address those new charges. The hope is that this will have been taken care by 23 March 2017 in order proceed with a judicial pre- trial hearing on that date. This would NOT be open to the public.

Follow posts and comments

Bob Drew
…it’s not terribly difficult. I use a “Feed Reader” called Feedly. It’s free to use, although there is a paid option. Feedly offers apps for phones and tablets as well, which will all sycnchronize
These instructions apply to the desktop (PC / Mac) version:
* Set up an account at feedly.com. When your account is ready, you’ll see an “add content” button in the top left corner. Click it.
* Type in or paste the URL of this site (www.theinquiry.ca/wordpress).
* Two results will come up. One is for the posts to the site (which Sylvia makes); another is for comments on posts (made by anyone). You can add those to your Feedly feed.
Once you have done this, new posts and comments will be fed to your Feedly page each time there’s something new. You can read them there and mark them as read afterwards, or click through to the actual post.
You can do this with almost all websites. It’s a great way of getting through lots of information in a short time.